Stephanie Thompson and William Wallisch

[00:03] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: My name is Stephanie Thompson. I'm 69 years old. Today is June 14, 2022. We are in Wichita, Kansas, and Bill Walsh is my conversation partner. And we are one small step. Conversation partners.

[00:24] WILLIAM WALSH: My name is Bill Walsh. I am 64 years old. Today is June 14, 2022. We are having a conversation in Wichita, Kansas. The name of my conversation partner is Stephanie Thompson. And she and I are having a conversation for one small step.

[00:52] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: My name is Bill Walsh Oh, I'm sorry. Question number one is right here. And then we'll do the bios after that. Oh, okay. Sorry. Bill, what made you want to do this interview today?

[01:09] WILLIAM WALSH: I had not really heard about one small step until the idea was presented to me at a CFO luncheon. There's a gentleman named Damon Young who works for the Kansas Leadership council, and he just shared his story of why he thought this was a good idea. And it resonated with me because I have felt for a long time that the heat is too high on political differences to the point that it is tearing at the fabric of society, specifically the society of the United States. And if we don't start making steps to kind of dial that down and turn down the heat a little bit, then when we really need to be together as a country, I'm afraid we won't be anymore. And so that's why something like this resonated with me.

[02:14] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Yes.

[02:15] WILLIAM WALSH: So what made you want to do this interview today?

[02:20] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Well, a number of years ago, I found myself becoming more and more outspoken in a way that I wasn't very happy about at the same time that my family was becoming more diverse and I realized I needed to do something about that or otherwise our family would be torn. And our church has done a lot of work on, well, it's called peaceful practices, ways to work together, to talk with one another when we differ. And like you, I believe that it is very difficult to deal with or I with these large issues that we have facing our country if we are not able to come together in a respectful, civil and appreciative kind of way.

[03:31] WILLIAM WALSH: Okay, good. Good. I agree. So I'm going to read your bio out loud right now, just as you wrote it. Hi. I'm a 67 year old retired elementary public school teacher. Don and I have two adult married children. Our six grandchildren are the joy of my life. I am a healthy, introverted homebody, so Covid has not affected me in the devastating way that it has so many. I can read, sew, garden my days away with ease, my progressive political and somewhat more conservative economic views are formed by my christian faith. My goal is to be a kind and open neighbor friend in our diverse neighborhood. I hope to, through this conversation, learn more about your life as a teacher. And the reason why is my daughter just left the profession. And, you know, it kind of breaks my heart a bit that she left the profession, but she just kind of burned out. And, you know, I just want to hear your thoughts on teaching and how it's changed over the years. But I'm also real interested in how the kids that have been coming to you have changed over the years. That's just something that interests me because we're going to be counting on those kids to support us in our old age. And like every generation of our age, I worry about the generation that's coming up. So I'm looking forward to hearing some of your thoughts on that.

[05:24] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: I'm I'm sorry. Do I answer that now? Okay. Okay. Well, I'm sad to hear that your daughter is leaving the teaching profession. And I'm sad for all the many other teachers who are doing that as well. And yet I know the well, I don't know personally because I retired before COVID And so I think that has just added another layer of stress to that profession, which is, I believe it's a stressful profession, but it's one that I came to rather late in life. I was 40 when I started teaching, and I finally sort of, I think, gave into my gifts. I finally gave in to my soul a little bit and then did that. And I enjoyed many wonderful years teaching. It became more and more stressful for a variety of reasons. But on my good days, I was always able to come to the classroom and remember that I was sitting or standing or greeting 25 young children who are tomorrows. And actually, my first classes, first classes are, of course, already in their professions, but I knew I was greeting the future doctors, teachers, plumbers, politicians, you name it. And that I always tried to think of that on my good days. I wasn't always able to do this, but it's really sacred ground, I think. But I did see changes over time with the changing family structures which, and level of poverty. I saw that a lot. That was a big change and a big eye opener to me about my own community. But one thing I don't really think did Change was that all parents, parents of my students always wanted to know what they could do to help their kids. And also they all were on the same path about wanting the best for their children.

[08:26] WILLIAM WALSH: Good. Good. I'm glad parents aren't losing that.

[08:30] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Yes, it was. It was satisfying to me to always. I loved parent teacher conferences for that reason, just to get to know them, so. And now I'll read your bio.

[08:49] WILLIAM WALSH: Okay.

[08:50] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: My name is Bill Walsh, and I've lived in the Wichita area since 1988. I moved here with my wife and two young boys from Kansas City to take a job with beach aircraft. While living in Wichita, we added a girl to our family. My kids are all grown and out of the house now with families of their own. Ironically, they've all settled in Kansas City. I've been working in accounting and finance related jobs since graduating from Rockhurst College in Kansas City, and we live in Goddard now. So I'm curious to know a little bit about the shift from the aircraft industry to accounting and finance, and maybe you're doing that within the aircraft industry.

[09:49] WILLIAM WALSH: I did that within the aircraft industry. I started out in Kansas City, and I was a public accountant, and beach aircraft was my client. And so when I decided to get out of public accounting, there just happened to be a job opening at beach doing the accounting, and I kind of understood how it worked there, and so I was a good fit, and they hired me, and so we transferred down here.

[10:14] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Okay, well, very good.

[10:16] WILLIAM WALSH: Yeah.

[10:17] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: And what led you to go to Rockhurst College? I'm curious.

[10:21] WILLIAM WALSH: Sure. Rockhurst is a small jesuit liberal arts college, and I went to a jesuit high school. Okay. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm Catholic.

[10:34] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Okay.

[10:35] WILLIAM WALSH: And I went to an all boys high school. It was a Jesuit, single sex high school. And I. I am a firm believer in single sex high schools, because you can focus on your education in a single sex high school, I think, better than you can in a mixed sex high school. There's not the boy girl dynamics that are going on. Does she like me? Do I look good today? All of that sort of stuff? You can focus on history or Latin or geometry or whatever it is that you're studying, and I wish I'd had the opportunity to give my kids that chance, but I didn't. And the Jesuits provide a pretty solid education. And so after high school, I decided to continue with the Jesuits in Kansas City. It was far enough away from Kansas City that I could. I went away to school, but it wasn't too far that I couldn't go home for a weekend.

[11:41] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Okay, well, very good. Very good. One of my high school classmates went to Rockhurst, and so I was just kind of interested to hear that.

[11:52] WILLIAM WALSH: And where did you go?

[11:54] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Oh, my. I've had a kind of a meandering around in college years. I started in Goshen College, which is a small liberal arts Mennonite college in northern Indiana, transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, and I graduated from there. And then when we moved back to this area, I went back to college to get my teaching degree. So I didn't actually work on a whole new degree, just what I needed for the licensure part of things. And I did that at Bethel College, which is a small liberal, excuse me, small liberal arts college in north Newton, Kansas, also mennonite like Goshen, was.

[12:48] WILLIAM WALSH: I can't imagine two different experiences than Goshen and the University of Texas at Austin.

[12:54] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: It was quite different. Yes. Yes. Question three.

[13:05] WILLIAM WALSH: Tell me about one or two people in your life who've had the biggest influence on you, and what did they teach you?

[13:13] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Oh, well, my parents, of course, and they taught me the value of hard work. They were farmers, wheat farmers here in Kansas, and they taught me the value of hard work. And also, my father especially taught me the importance of generosity. And then, I would have to say later, more recently, a person who had a great deal of influence on me was a pastor in our church who began to talk with us as a congregation about being neighborly and friendly, not with an agenda in mind, as in come to church, come to our church, but just because that's the right thing to do. And that is. That is her. And it has become my biblical understanding of the New Testament, so. And she helped me start thinking about the other. That. And if we have others in our lives, then that makes us an other. And I really didn't want to be an other. I wanted to be a. I wanted to be on equal footing with everyone. I wanted people to be on equal footing with me, as in a relationship.

[14:56] WILLIAM WALSH: Okay.

[15:00] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: And what. And who are one or two people in your life who've had biggest influence on you, and what did they teach you?

[15:09] WILLIAM WALSH: I think. I think, like you, my parents, I'd have to put them at the top. They. They taught me the importance of family. You know, when you. When you got eight kids, obvious. There's eight. There's eight in my family. I'm. I'm the oldest, and my youngest brother was born when I was in college, and so I never lived with my youngest brother, but, you know, they just taught me the importance of family. My dad now, unfortunately, has dementia. He's 90 and he's got dementia. But before that ravaged him, what thrilled him the most was just his family. You know, he was proud of the fact that all eight of his kids turned out well, that we all married well. And he just, you could tell he just took a lot of pride in his family, and the same with my mom. And so I just have to say that they started. Another person that had a big influence on my life is a gentleman that I worked for after I left. Bjdehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe aircraft. I worked for a small family held business called cobalt boats. And I don't know if you've ever heard of cobalt boats, but cobalt boats is based in niotochea, kansas. I don't even know if you know where niotochea is.

[16:41] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: I do know that, yes.

[16:42] WILLIAM WALSH: Well, it's based in niotoshe, kansas. And I was recruited there after I left beach aircraft, and I worked there from zero six to 28. So twelve years of my life. And it was owned and started by a gentleman named pax st. Clair. And pac st. Clair was probably the most the guy that I admire because I've never met a man like him that was so well respected in his community, so well respected in his company, and so well respected in his industry. So I tried to learn leadership skills from mister st. Clair to just give you one quick story about what the st. Clair family was like. The family decided that the company had grown so big that they needed to sell it. So they sold it to another boat manufacturer. And the St. Clairs came out pretty well as a result of that. And what they did is, as a Thanksgiving for the 600 plus people that worked there, they gave everybody a $1000 bonus for every year they had worked at the company. And I still get tingles up and down my spine thinking about that. He just taught me that to succeed in life, you need a lot of others. And you were talking about, you know, others, and. And you just need to make others feel important, and you need to make your customers feel important. Whatever your customers are, you need to make them feel important. And so that was something that I'd have to say was pretty influential. Influential in my life, yes. Next question I'd like to ask you is could you briefly describe in your own words, your personal political values?

[18:53] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Well, as I mentioned before, I consider myself to be more on the liberal side of things when it comes to social issues. And I do believe that our political system should be one that offers an order for us to live within. And I would like to think that that order. And I guess I'm just, you know, thinking about how the legislature works and the executive branch and so on, and the judicial branch. And I would like to think. I'm not sure this always. Well, I don't think this always happens, but I would like it to be a system that everyone has access to and that everyone is treated equally in that. I think that I'm a little more conservative, though, when it comes to the financial or economic parts of things. And one thing that does concern me greatly is the economic divide that I think we find ourselves in. And that. And that concerns me greatly. And I just don't. I am very appreciative when our tax dollars are paying for public school, public health, safe infrastructure. But there are, there are some things about our economy that does support things that I'm not in favor of.

[20:55] WILLIAM WALSH: Okay.

[20:57] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Yeah. So I'll turn the question to you then. Could you just describe, in your own words, your personal political values?

[21:06] WILLIAM WALSH: Sure. Sure. First of all, I like this type of conversation because it challenges me to think why? And too often I just know what I am. But I have to ask myself why. So thank you for asking that question. I think that you and I have been blessed to have been born into the greatest country in the history of the world. And I think one of the, one of the reasons why our country has been so great and so extraordinary throughout the history of our country is the wisdom of the founding fathers and the forethought that they gave to how the government ought to be structured with the division of power between the executive branch and the legislative branch and the judicial branch. But the underlying pinnings, as I read it in history and as I read the constitution, is the limited government that they set up, their distrust of a large, omnipresent federal government. And so they gave more power to the states and local government because I believe the states and local governments are closer to the issues than the people in Washington, DC. And so when I think our country has excelled as a country is when it has turned loose the creativity of the individuals inside of our society and not dictated it from Washington, DC, through rules and regulations and laws and things that have good intentions, but tend to have so many unintended consequences and tend to keep down people or stifle them from achieving their potential. And so I tend to be conservative because I believe in the power of hard work and the power of people to better themselves. And I believe in the fact that if you better yourself on your own or, you know, through your effort, even if there is assistance, but if it's through your effort, then you appreciate it. If it's given to you by an omnipresent and omnipowerful government, then you don't tend to appreciate it as much. And, you know, I even see that in the work that we do at catholic charities. I'm now the director of finance for Catholic Charities. And we've got, what, twelve or 13 missions that we do. We help women with get out of domestic violence. We have a food pantry. We get families off of the street that are homeless or about to be homeless. We help get veterans off that are homeless. And so often we extend a helping hand and it's just not appreciated.

[24:43] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Yeah.

[24:44] WILLIAM WALSH: Because, you know, people have been, what's the word I'm looking for? They have been conditioned to expect somebody to take care of them. They've been conditioned for the government to come in and give me a handout or this organization to give me a handout. What I feel they have lost then, is a certain amount of self respect from not doing it on their own. And that is one of the unfortunate unintended consequences of trying to do good for everybody all the time. And so I think that's why I, I tend to be more conservative is because my folks were conservative. And so a lot of times that's what gets passed down. Although I failed my kids, they have turned out to be liberals. And we have interesting conversations like this, and I enjoy that because it allows me to keep the, the saw sharp with regards to my thoughts.

[26:05] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Well, that's very interesting because I have actually have some similar thoughts about that and my growing up years. Something else I learned from my parents and then from our church is the importance of service to others. And so that's always a big focus. And then I mentioned to pastor a little bit ago that, and she not, I don't know if this was purposeful on her part, but I began to think when I did do something, provide a meal for our new hope, shelter in the community or, you know, whatever, that I'm not doing it. I should not be coming at it from a position of, oh, I can help you because I've achieved, or I'm up here so I can help you, but more as a way of, oh, I'm doing this because we are potential friends. And, and that has, I know you didn't ask this question, but, you know, that has helped me kind of move away from, and not that it has to be moved away from either, but moved away from that. Well, I can do these things for you, but you have nothing to offer to me. And that may be getting far afield from what you were talking about, too. But I, but that has, that has just been kind of an instrumental and important thing for me in my life. But.

[28:05] WILLIAM WALSH: Well, I share your belief that doing good for others is the right thing to do to me. That still fits in with my conservative values, in spite of the fact that people think that conservatives are heartless, non caring people. But as you know, Jesus said, you will always have the poor with you. And I think part of the reason why is that if, if people were not poor, if there were not people in need, then there would be no need for us to do his will and to do his work.

[28:47] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Yes, yes.

[28:48] WILLIAM WALSH: But if, if we start expecting the government to do everything, then that, and to do it with our tax dollars, then it depersonalizes and takes away from us some of the responsibility to take care of those others that you had mentioned earlier. And so that's just, again, kind of how I look at it is I would rather go and work at the Lord's diner myself than have the USDA diner feeding people, because the Lord's diner gives individuals like you and I the opportunity to serve our fellow man. So that, that's just kind of, you know what? I was looking at that.

[29:44] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Yeah, it's a, it's a complex issue. And, I mean, there's, yeah, lots of ways to, you know, to look at it.

[29:59] WILLIAM WALSH: Sure.

[29:59] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: But it is, it gets complicated. It gets complicated. Yeah.

[30:04] WILLIAM WALSH: So do you ever feel troubled by people with the same beliefs as you and how they communicate those beliefs to others?

[30:14] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: I do. And so when I hear someone say, and this just happened recently, when I hear someone say, well, you know, you have to be an idiot to do. And then she outlined what that was. And it was coming from her liberal perspective, for a more conservative perspective, she was calling these people idiots and she wasn't naming them, but they had to be idiots to believe this. And I have to tell you that I was in that spot a number of years ago myself. And that's, you know, when I said I was becoming the kind of person I, oh, you know, didn't like. And that bothers me a lot. It is, it is very troubling to me and this same person who I do love dearly and always will and also thinks it is important to have a conversation with people who think differently. But it is in the vein of I think, and she may disagree with me, so, but that she is trying to convince that other person, it's that being right and being wrong. You know, I'm right and you're wrong. And that is what troubles me about people who I think are on that more liberal side of things.

[32:07] WILLIAM WALSH: Well, you can say the same thing about people on my side, and I'll give, you know, a couple of examples. I think I cringe when I listen to talk radio. I do listen to talk radio, and I am not ashamed to admit that I listen to Rush Limbaugh whenever I could until he passed away. And we can go into how I think he was misunderstood and misquoted. But, but there are too many others that are now on the radio that feel that the best way to get their message across is to denigrate the other, is to, is to call them idiots or stupid or, you know, this, this guy can't figure his way out of paperback, however they want to put it. And that does disservice to the message that they're trying to communicate. And it does trouble me and cause me some discomfort when they do that. I wish they would stick with the point and stick with their reasoning and their argument for why this approach would work better than that approach, but they probably wouldn't be on the air long because they would be just too dull. The other thing that bothers me, and it bothers me on both sides is the way that we look for people on the other side that have misbehaved to help people draw the conclusion that, you know, all conservatives cheat on their wives.

[33:44] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Yes.

[33:45] WILLIAM WALSH: Or all liberals steal from others. You know, it. You can find a, because we're all flawed, you can find instances of malfeasance in about everybody if you look long enough, but specifically in those on the other side of the argument. And so that's just buttresses my belief that, you know, they're all crooks or they're all deviants or whatever the case might be. And so that bothers me a, on both sides.

[34:18] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: And then it becomes a discussion or argument or away from the issues and concerns and makes it very difficult to be able to form policies together if you're thinking about on the governmental level, to make policies together that would really benefit everyone, regardless of political affiliation. But I do see that as well. And it is, and it is troubling to me as well.

[34:59] WILLIAM WALSH: One of the things that I was, I was very troubled with more than anything I had been in a long time is there were commentators on the left with the Uvalde disaster that were saying that conservatives wanted no gun control laws so that, and wanted no abortions so that victims could be raised for them to shoot at in the future. And holy cow, you want to talk about, you know, bringing a conversation to a new low level. I mean, that, that was, that was pretty low. And I can just as easily go and find examples, you know, on, on the conservative side also. And it's just things like that that make me concerned about the future.

[36:06] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: It does those kinds of things. And I do agree with you that they're said by all parties that it's, it just, and of course, I don't. Now here I am thinking that I know people's motivations when I don't really, that it foments an already tragic, oftentimes already very tragic situation. And then we once again move away from being able to come together and do something that could meaningfully make a difference. And we must do that. I just think we've got to do that. But I, yeah, we just have to do that.

[37:02] WILLIAM WALSH: So do you feel misunderstood by people with different beliefs than you and how so? For instance, do you think that I misunderstand you or conservatives misunderstand you and how.

[37:15] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Well, you know, I've been called a socialist and have been told and then recounted all of the many governments that have failed, who had, well, I would say, autocratic, an autocratic leadership, which was perhaps the problem in that particular society. But I feel that that's misunderstood because I don't think that I'm a socialist, don't consider myself one. And I think people also have perhaps thought that I am not patriotic, that I don't love the US, and those things are not the case. And if anything, I've become much more, I feel like, much more patriotic in my recent years and love of an appreciation for what the US has provided or has given me. And hopefully, you know, hopefully that would be everyone. But, yeah. Do you feel misunderstood?

[38:45] WILLIAM WALSH: Yeah, sure. I feel misunderstood by society when all conservatives are considered to be racist. Okay, I'm a conservative, so therefore I must be racist. I voted for Trump because there was nobody else, because that was who was on the ballot. And so that makes me one of those MAga racists. That makes me a bigoted, homophobic racist. I'm a 64 year old white guy, so that makes me a privileged white Mandev who hasn't achieved anything of success on my own. I've achieved it on the back of the poor, on the back of the color of people of color. And I feel that. I feel misunderstood in that perspective. Nobody knows that I was the best man in an african American's wedding. Nobody knows things like that. But because I'm a conservative, I'm a bigot. And so, yeah, I feel I've been misunderstood. And so that, again, is one of the reasons why, when Dan talked to me, that was one of the things I told him because he kind of asked the same type of question. And so I think part of the reason why one small step can work is that maybe you'll go away thinking that not all conservatives are hateful bigots, or anybody that happens to listen to this conversation will realize that. And on both sides that we both bleed red when we're cut and we both love our family, etcetera.

[40:56] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: We're all so much more complex than a word that has many misconotitions. That, and it makes, in some ways, it makes for an easier, I think wrongly so, but makes for an easier maybe way of, well, I, you know, someone can more easily say perhaps that, well, you know, that person is an idiot or a bigot or socialist. And so then I don't have to enter into a relationship because they're just this one thing and we're not. We're just not.

[41:56] WILLIAM WALSH: Yeah, well, not only that, but that's a lazy way to enter into a dialogue or a discussion argument, whatever you want to call it. All you have to do to shut down the argument is say, well, you're a bigot. Of course you're a bigot, or of course you're a socialist. Then I don't have to try and prove the strong points of my feelings or discuss what might be weaknesses in your political views. You're just a socialist. That's all I need to know.

[42:35] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to suss out all the, all the complexities that we bring with us and all of the experiences and people who've made us who we are, the interesting things about us, you know? So, yeah, I think that's an interesting question. I also wonder if either of you would be interested in asking your partner if there's a political issue that you most desire, progress on what that might be and what progress would look like. So this or that, it's your choice. Okay. We're neither.

[43:25] WILLIAM WALSH: I hold out little hope that there will be any progress on this one, but we're about to find out whether I'm right or not. And that has to do with abortion, as it looks like Roe v. Wade may be overturned. And, you know, the country is awfully divided in that perspective, and it has the potential to divide us even further and to rip us apart even more if just because this issue gets at the core belief of so many people, and so many people have different core beliefs about rights and when does life begin and what is a more dominant right, the right to life or the right to reproductive control of my body and the right to make a change choice as to whether I want to be a parent or not? Those are things that concern me about where we're going to go in the next year or so as this issue begins to get more heated and take more of a imminent role if Roe v. Wade is, in fact, overturned. And so that's one area where I'd like to see us work and see if there's a consensus. But I know that there's not a consensus. There's just not going to be one of those. And so that's an issue that, more than anything else, probably concerns me as far as what, what's going to happen in the next six months to a year in that regard.

[45:35] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: I've used this word a number of times, but this is another very complex issue that people have very and rightly so, very emotional responses to. And, you know, when, when that question was asked of me now, I don't recall whether that was Dan or Naomi, but one of the conversations that led to our being here today, like, are you pro life or are you pro choice? And I said, well, I think I'm. I'm both. I think I'm both, or I know I'm both because there are individuals who, there are girls and women who have found themselves in really awful, awful, awful situations through rape or incest or other kinds of situations that, that really make it, I think, very complex or health reasons as well. It's not, it's not an easy answer. And I, and maybe this, maybe I just want to believe this, and maybe this isn't actually how it is, but I just think that anyone who enters into that decision of actually getting an abortion has done it with gut wrenching self conversations and that it has not been an easy decision. But on the other hand, I don't know how you can't think that life doesn't begin at the point of conception. Well, now, here I am. This platitude. Yes, I'm, you know, it does begin at the point of conception, but I do think it. I personally do think it does. And so it's, it just, but I just, like I said, I just can't think that people enter into that decision lightly and like, oh, well, you know, I'll just go do this. And I would like for it to be safe. For them, and not necessarily. Not necessarily easy, but safe. And I have many, many friends who do not agree with me on that one at all. And it is very divisive.

[48:44] WILLIAM WALSH: It is divisive, and it's one of those issues that I see once people have come to a decision about what they believe, not many people change their mind. And, you know, like you, I believe that life starts at conception. I don't know. It's hard to define another time that it starts. Well, maybe it's when it reaches a point of viability. So, you know, it's not a very long journey from the womb. Outside of the womb, you know, less than a foot. And so to say that somebody is not a person until they can live outside of the womb, to me, that's. That's a. That's very difficult because it's gonna shift as technology and science improves. The viability is much different now than it was 20 years ago, which means you have to redefine when life starts for somebody, if that. So anyway.

[50:04] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Well, we have seen great strides in medicine that really have complicated lot of things. I think an abortion and. Well, the whole notion of viability is certainly one of those that is kind of a moving. It's constantly. Constantly moving because of what our medical profession is able to do for us. Yeah. So I guess, in spite of all these things, what are your hopes for the future? What would you. How would you like things to be? And since you're. We're of the same generation, as you said earlier, what would you hope to see even within our lifetimes?

[50:57] WILLIAM WALSH: Well, I hope for a generation of leaders that is willing to come together when needed, because the country needs them to. I'm looking for a leader, and it's going to be in a. In a time of difficulty, somehow, a time of war or a time of something disastrous that I am hopeful can start bringing our country back together again. I have to hope for that, or I would be distraught. I always try and be the glasses half full type of guy, and it's easy to not think that the glass is half full. Just looking at the situation right now. If we can't come together as a country and try and fight Covid together, my gosh, what is it that it's going to take? But I still have hope that there is a leader or a future leader out there that can help start bringing us together again. Because if nothing, we run the risk of no longer being the greatest nation on earth if we don't, if we can't somehow figure out how to come closer together.

[52:33] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: That is that being able to work together and bring diverse people together, our diversity, that makes up our country, which I think is the foundation, too, of our democracy, then I agree that it's going to be very difficult to tackle the really big issues that I do see that are evident out there. But I share that. I share that hope. And I guess the way I've come to. To think about that is that what can I control? And that would be my relationships with other people. And so my hopefully, my being able to come together in meaningful relationships with other people, regardless of their backgrounds or their beliefs, that's that one small step, if you will, that I do have control over. And I think if enough of us do that, and I know that probably sounds pollyanna ish, and maybe it is, but, you know, I have to hold on to that one because otherwise it can be discouraging for me. That's the understatement, actually.

[54:13] WILLIAM WALSH: Yeah. Kind of the way. Okay, kind of. Kind of way I look at it, that one small step. It's the same way that I recycle my plastic milk jugs.

[54:25] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: Oh, yes. Okay.

[54:26] WILLIAM WALSH: That's not going to save the world, right? It's not going to save the planet. It's not going to save the climate. But it's one little thing that I can do that if we all do that one little thing, maybe there's a way to turn things around. And so I am hopeful of that. So what are my hopes for the future? It's that somehow we can figure out.

[54:51] STEPHANIE THOMPSON: That sort of thing, that all of our small steps can add to something greater. And, you know, I guess I've also come to think that maybe if it. If it doesn't, I will not regret that I haven't tried. I haven't. I don't want to regret that I didn't recycle that one plastic milk jug. I don't want to regret anything. And maybe so. That is also part of how I think about the future. And thank you very much. And thank you for keeping me on point.

[55:41] WILLIAM WALSH: We could have diverted else.